Uruguay

Having done everything that we wanted in Buenos Aires for this trip, today we decided to go to Uruguay for the day.

There were a couple of options for doing this. We could’ve got a ferry which would’ve taken three hours or a catamaran which took one. Seeing as though the price difference between the two options was only around £12 each, though, we decided we’d rather spend two hours at sea rather than six! So, getting to the Buquebus terminal around 10.30 am,

we bought our tickets on the 11:45am catamaran, got our fifth Argentinean entry/ exit passport stamp, and waited for the ferry to arrive.

After a mad scramble/ free-for-all trying to get decent seats, where we just missed out on the window seats, we were off to visit our penultimate new country!

We were going to a place called Colonia Del Sacremento in Uruguay, and after an hour crossing the River Plate and the estuary leading to the Atlantic Ocean,

we arrived at the port and started to explore.

Not really having a clue about what Colonia had to offer (as you’d expect!) we’d ripped a town plan out of a magazine on the catamaran and headed down Manuel Lobo Street into the town centre.

The first impression of the town was that it was quite pleasant and, after the hustle and noise of Buenos Aires, quite deserted and quiet. There were lots of nice, small houses we passed as we walked, one with a couple of Collie dogs lying down.

As soon as Mandy took the camera out and took a shot of them though, they launched straight at the fence and tried to rip out our jugulars! Five minutes in a new country and we’d already made enemies!

We reached a place called Plaza 1811,

in which a small wooden bridge led through the old city walls.

We don’t know the history of the town, but the walls were fortified, with cannons sitting atop them,

which led us to believe that the town had been some sort of fort at some stage.

I popped up to the top of the fortifications to grab a couple of pictures of the views,

and Mandy (as you would expect) found the nearest Hobbit hole to make a new home in!

Dragging her out of there, we headed towards a lighthouse nearby.

And, seeing as we were making up what we were doing as we went along, we decided to go up it!

Paying our entrance fee (around 50p each) the guy behind the counter warned us that the ceilings were low. So, whilst Mandy actually found an advantage to being a short-arse

I spent most of the climb up the winding steps bent double! But finally, after banging my head on the exit door, we had made it to the top of the lighthouse, and the views over the town of Colonia.

The top of the lighthouse was quite small; you could walk around it in 5 seconds flat! So, having exerted all the effort climbing the stairs to get up there, we quickly came back down again in no time at all!

We continued through the town, heading past a couple of interesting statues on the way,

and an old windmill that had been converted into a café,

before reaching the jetty of the harbour.

According to the map we had, this was the furthest point in the town from our catamaran. And even though we’d been playing in lighthouses and Hobbit holes, it had only taken us thirty minutes to get here! So, not a big town then!

One thing we’ve noticed recently is that a lot of our conversations regarding this trip have become self-referential. For example, whereas at the start of the trip in January we related experiences to things we’d done before we set off, we’ve been on the road so long now that we’re finding ourselves relating new experiences to ones we’ve had in another country on this trip. We had one such occurrence on the jetty here. Whilst visiting Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia back in March, we saw a marker indicating the distances to places such as London and Antarctica. And one of the places it indicated was Montevideo in Uruguay. At the time, the distance was something ridiculous like 13,000km, and we had commented to each other how far away in distance and time it would be before we were anywhere near Montevideo.

Well, nearly four months and several tens of thousands of kilometres later, we had reached as close to Montevideo as we were going to get (it’s a two hour bus ride from Colonia). And we were reminded of this by seeing a boat with Montevideo written on it.

Like I said; completely self referential but it’s times like this that have reminded us just how far and long we have travelled. And for some reason, it felt particularly poignant here.

We carried on, now heading back in the direction of the catamaran port, through more of the pleasant cobbled streets. Whilst Colonia had it’s share of touristy things such as rides in old cars

it didn’t leave us with the feeling that Caminito in La Boca had yesterday. Yes, it’s targeted at tourists with a fair selection of souvenirs to buy, but you are left with the feeling that the town is picturesque anyway and hasn’t been artificially preserved or restored. Just small things such as the tiled street names and signs

were a really nice touch, and added to the charm of the place.

We reached the modern part of the town, and wandered down the main high street, looking for essential quality items to purchase. And so it came to be that I acquired my second South American football shirt, this time a Uruguay one! When we left the shop, having had to buy it from someone who spoke no English, we realised that we’d understood the conversations with the shop assistant perfectly. And it was quite a complex transaction, what with credit cards being rejected and sorting out payment in non-Uruguayan money, but we’d understood everything perfectly! Maybe having been in Spanish speaking countries for nearly a month, it’s rubbing off on us!

One successful purchase later, we decided to head back to the catamaran. Stopping briefly at the Cathedral,

we passed the wooden bridge we’d been on earlier as we left the city walls,

and within five minutes had reached the dock area.

Checking in at the port, we should have paid US$32 port tax to leave the country. But for some unknown (and very much appreciated) reason, nobody asked us for it! Which more than paid for the football shirt!

Making sure that we didn’t miss out on the good seats on the way back, we positioned ourselves in the terminal so that when the gates opened we would be among the first getting onto the catamaran. And sure enough, when they did open, we barged and fought our way to the best seats on the vessel!

So, settling back and watching Uruguay disappear,

we watched the most bizarre sporting event on the TV screens – Men and Women’s speed climbing! It was just an indoor-rock-climbing structure with two competitors competing against each other and was the strangest sporting event I’ve ever seen screened! Absolutely bizarre but strangely compelling viewing! But why they showed it as entertainment for a catamaran crossing I’ll never know!

After an absorbing bit of sporting entertainment, where the competitor on the left ALWAYS seemed to win, we reached Buenos Aires

where we departed the catamaran and headed through the busy streets of the city for the last time.

We’d had a really pleasant and quite relaxing daytrip to Uruguay. Along with Brazil, it’d been a country I mentioned in my very first blog entry that I wasn’t entirely sure we’d make it to. But we did, and we’ll soon have completed the list.

Because tomorrow, we return to Santiago in Chile for the night, before heading to our final new country the next day, Peru.